BEARING THE SPOTLIGHT
Mom, cub grab attention in Amesbury
A mother bear and her cub barely escaped a crowd of overly curious spectators yesterday after the animals climbed up a tree off a busy Amesbury street.
Police responding to a call from someone driving by Elm Street and Atlantic Avenue arrived around 6 a.m. to find the black bears as high as 40 to 50 feet off the ground.
“They probably had just been out foraging for food,” said Amesbury Fire Chief Ken Berkenbush. “So the original thought was to leave them alone.”
But a crowd of 20 to 30 people began to gather. So the Department of Fish and Game and MassWildlife decided the safest plan was to tranquilize the bears, Berkenbush said.
Shortly before 10 a.m., firefighters arrived with a ladder truck, he said, and environmental police from the Department of Fish and Game leaned the ladder against a shed, climbed on the roof and shot first the mother and then the cub with tranquilizer darts.
The bears began to climb down but then fell and were caught by authorities holding a tarp below.
“When a bear is tranquilized, they lose the ability to cool themselves, and they overheat,” Berkenbush said.
So firefighters packed the bears in ice and put them in the back of a truck so that they could be relocated.
“They were brought to a wooded location,” he said, “but I’ve been sworn to secrecy as to where.”
Although their story had a happy ending, Berkenbush said, it could have ended very differently.
“Even if a bear is defending her cub, they end up getting euthanized if anything happens when that many people are around,” he said. “If people had backed off, put their phones away and given them their space, they would have come down on their own. They’re not there for your entertainment.”
Bear sightings in eastern Massachusetts have increased dramatically in recent years, with bears spotted in Brookline, Newton, Waltham — and one bruin famously making it all the way to Truro several years ago and returned to western Massachusetts only to be picked up again in Boston’s western suburbs.
Wildlife experts say rising bear populations in the forests north and west of Boston are driving younger bears into the suburbs as they seek their own territory. Residents are advised not to put out bird feeders and to secure their trash, which can attract bears seeking to food to fatten up for the winter.